


And the stars are on your side

by Beleriandings



Series: Just this once (everybody lives) [8]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Explicit Sexual Content, Far Future, Immortal Ianto Jones, Immortality, M/M, Space Husbands, references to past character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:15:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27534355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beleriandings/pseuds/Beleriandings
Summary: (AU: Just this once)Back when the Rift closed, the Doctor had told them that Ianto's immortality could potentially be reversed, if another Rift was found.Well, there's a first time for everything, and now Ianto has a choice to make.
Relationships: Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones
Series: Just this once (everybody lives) [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1826248
Comments: 26
Kudos: 55
Collections: Torchwood Fan Fests: The Year That Never Was Fest





	And the stars are on your side

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Yavemiel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yavemiel/gifts).



> Set in the far future of my story [Just This Once](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21618322/chapters/51549379); warning that this contains heavy spoilers for the ending of that fic so I'd very much recommend you read that first (also it uh, might not make that much sense if you haven't, sorry!)
> 
> Torchwood Fan Fests' The Year That Never Was Fest (for alternate timelines) prompts used: "survival", "grief", "healing".

_**[The** _ _**31** **st**_ _ **century]** _

Ianto didn’t know what had woken him. Indeed, he wasn’t even fully awake. At least, not until he rolled over towards the middle of the bed, arm reaching out only to find that Jack’s side of the bed was empty.

That was enough to bring him to – mostly – full wakefulness. He sat up, turning on the light to its lowest setting, still blinking owlishly in its dim glow.

He’d been right, it seemed; Jack was, indeed, not there.

Ianto sighed, rubbing his face wearily. Jack being awake was not, in itself, an unusual occurrence; neither of them slept as much or as regularly as most people did after all.

But recently Jack’s insomnia had got worse, enough to concern Ianto.

Of course, he could take a few guesses about why; Ianto thought it fair to say it had been a bad few years. They’d sworn off time travel except for emergencies a few hundred years ago – after a few only-just-averted encounters with their past and future selves and a few other assorted paradox scares, it had become obvious that for two immortals, excessive time travel could get complicated very quickly. But it meant that for better or for worse, they couldn’t skip ahead through the bad years.

Or back, over the good ones.

No, there was only the present, which Ianto knew better than most. And sometimes the present was really not very much fun at all.

Like recently. Ianto thought ruefully about all they’d been through in recent times; the Polaris war, the long-period comet they’d had to blow up as a precaution when it turned out to be full of Cybermen, in stasis waiting for the next pass close to the Earth. The Oort Cloud crime syndicate that had taken Ianto hostage because they’d got wind of his power to see alternate timelines, leaving an irate, miserable and lonely Jack to rescue him. The latest arson attack on the east wing of the Torchwood Archive’s Earth-based server bank, which Ianto had been helping to recover the data from in between other missions.

And then, of course, just a few weeks ago there had been Seren. Not unexpected, but still a blow to both of their hearts.

That’s why that they were travelling now, in fact; they were returning to Earth after her funeral in the Pegasi system. They’d made it there in time to say goodbye, and stayed for a while after; family was important, after all. Specifically, their daughter’s.

But her family didn’t really need them anymore; they had each other, more than they’d ever had Jack or Ianto. And soon they’d felt the call of Earth again too. Of home, such as it was.

And they were almost home now. The journey had been fairly long, but sometimes, Ianto had come to realise over the centuries, a journey was just what one needed; long-haul space travel did a certain something for the heart, especially when it was just him and Jack together. Traveling often helped ease grief, a little.

But this time, it seemed, Jack wasn’t coping well. Ianto frowned, getting out of bed to go look for him; this ship was bigger than one of the fast little clippers they flew into low-planetary orbits while on missions, but not as big as one of Torchwood’s orbiting bases, with their heavy storage and docking ports. It was like a small house of its own, and Ianto and Jack had made sure it was comfortable for long trips.

But it wasn’t very big, and so it wasn’t very hard to find Jack. In fact he was in the first place Ianto looked, which was the bridge.

When Ianto opened the door there was Jack, standing by the console with the blue glow of the holographic display lighting his face. Before Ianto could get a glimpse of what was on the display though, Jack had closed it, the light dimming to the background glow of the control panel in night mode. It illuminated him in its soft cold glow, picking out the planes and shadows of him, pinprick glints where it reflected off his open eyes and off the wedding ring where his hand hung slack at his side.

Jack was standing perfectly still as though lost in thought, staring at where the display had been a moment ago. Ianto was about to go to him, but instead he took just a moment to observe Jack, eyes roaming over him. Jack had put on a pair of sleep trousers but he was shirtless, standing still enough to almost resemble a statue cast in light and shade. Ianto took a moment to appreciate the sight, the way the light spilled across Jack’s stomach and chest, before noticing the very small frown on his face. Once he’d spotted that, he was on alert, scanning Jack for other signs that something was wrong. Sure enough, Jack held himself with a certain stiffness to his posture that wasn’t quite normal.

Ianto frowned, stepping into the room properly – making sure not to move silently, because if something was bothering Jack he didn’t like to be startled – and came up behind him, putting his arms around his waist and leaning his head on his shoulder. “Can’t sleep?” he muttered in Jack’s ear.

Jack was still for a moment longer before letting out his breath, a little of the tension leaving him in the circle of Ianto’s arms, stomach muscles relaxing a little under his flat palms. “Guess you could say that” Jack said. His voice sounded a little rough, Ianto thought.

“Did you have a dream?” They both had nightmares relatively often, and it never got much easier; by now they were at least very much used to taking care of each other in the aftermath. When Jack didn’t answer, Ianto clasped his hand over his, giving him a grounding squeeze. “Come back to bed?”

Jack turned and looked at him at that; Ianto thought he caught something in his gaze, something tired and sad.

He frowned himself. He had a pretty good guess about what might be bothering Jack because it was still hanging over him too, that pall of grief as they made their way home from the Pegasi system.

Over the centuries, Ianto and Jack had been to a lot of funerals; more than they could count. But it was always worse when it was one of their own children. Their consolation, of course, had been that Seren had lived until the age of a hundred and eight, and died peacefully surrounded by her half-Pegasinian children, her grandchildren and great-grandchildren; that wasn’t always the case with those who lived their lives near Jack and Ianto. They’d both been there with her too, because they could hardly do any other than see their little girl to the very end of a long and happy life.

But even long and happy lives ended in death. At least most people’s did; the two of them were something of an exception.

Regardless, Ianto knew Jack had been a little off ever since the funeral. Or maybe even before that, Ianto thought. There’d been the Polaris war, in which they’d first fought over fifty years ago; they’d adopted their son Kessel after he’d been orphaned by a raid then, his biological parents and all his younger siblings killed or taken. They’d put down their weapons to look after him, and they’d been able to give him a few decades of peace and happiness, a good life. But his species, the Phaethidae, had a shorter lifespan even than most humans, and so of course they’d lost him too, before the age of thirty in human years; a blink of a lifetime even by usual human standards, and Ianto didn’t think his heart would ever stop aching.

Afterwards, they’d gone back to Polaris to fight in the war; it was still raging, generations later. Jack said it carried on until at least the forty-second century, a thought that made Ianto feel old, and very tired.

They’d both had a few bad deaths, in that war; they’d barely been out of it when they’d got the news that Seren was sick.

It had really been a bad few decades, Ianto reflected as he watched Jack with a deepening frown. Even amidst the vast, horizontal tapestry of possibilities that Ianto could look into if he wanted to, it had been bad. And yet these things happened every day, across the universe: wars were fought, and people grew old and had families and lived and died. It was the two of them that were the outliers: that had become clear to Ianto early on.

He was pulled from his reverie by Jack taking his hands with a tired nod, pressing a kiss to his temple and leading him back to bed without another word.

And Ianto might have thought that was the end of it, except that two nights later, it happened again.

This time he had more certainty about what had woken him; the shade over the ceiling was normally opaque, but tonight Jack had opened it. He must have been looking up at the stars, Ianto knew. Which was Jack’s shipboard substitute for climbing up on rooftops, broadly speaking.

Which meant something really was bothering Jack.

Again Ianto found him in front of the ship’s controls; again Jack shut the display and gave Ianto that same expression of suppressed sorrow as he let him lead him numbly back to bed.

By the third time, Ianto began to grow more worried. After all, he knew the signs by now that something was troubling Jack to the point of fixation; something over and above all the usual heartache of immortal life, that was.

And if Jack wasn’t going to tell him about it, then he’d have to take matters into his own hands.

The thing was: Ianto very, very much did not like to have to go behind Jack’s back. Not after the early days. Not even then. But he also knew that whatever this was, for some reason best known to himself, Jack wasn’t going to share it with Ianto of his own free will.

So really this was for Jack’s own good, Ianto thought as he typed in Jack’s access key; he knew it off by heart, because them having separate keys was really only a formality. They shared everything, which was part of why it set off alarm bells when Jack was clearly keeping something from him.

The reasoning, Ianto thought with a frown as the computer granted him access, didn’t do as much as he’d hoped to assuage his guilt.

But all that was forgotten a moment later, as Jack’s research popped up on the display.

Ianto stared at the data read-outs, blinking in the bright blue holographic glow as he read. When he’d finished he read it again, eyes skimming over diagrams and coordinates. Catching on the history at the bottom of the page; everything queried by Jack’s access key. Which had apparently been monitoring this for a long time now; hundreds of years, in fact, spent waiting.

Waiting for this.

And he hadn’t just been waiting either, Ianto realised as he opened up a few more folders. There was research here, detailed and meticulous. Bringing him memories of a terrible day a thousand years ago, a day he didn’t want to remember. The day they’d nearly lost each other, or one of them. The day the Rift had been closed in the House of the Dead, and Ianto’s life had changed forever.

Ianto frowned, pressing his hands over his eyes; the imprint of the light danced behind them, taunting him. When he opened his eyes again, it was still there.

“Oh. So you found it, huh?”

Ianto turned abruptly, seeing Jack standing in the doorway behind him. Jack’s eyebrows were raised in a silent question, but there was a frown underlying it that Ianto could tell Jack was trying very hard not to let him see. He didn’t rise to it; he frowned too, folding his arms. “You’ve been monitoring the emergence of spatio-temporal Rifts” he said. “And now you’ve found one.”

“Yeah” said Jack, voice cracking just a little. “Not too far away from home, either. Kuiper belt, third octant. Just opened up.” He raised his eyebrows. “Well?”

“...Well what?”

“Ianto… do you...” the silence between words hung thick and brittle with crystallised grief. “...Want to take a detour?”

“...I assume this isn’t just for nostalgic purposes” said Ianto, foreboding starting in his heart.

Jack pushed off the side of the door and walked across the room towards him, leaving a significantly larger space between them than he usually would; there was a certain solemn formality to his stance, something soldier-like and stoic, and that was almost more disquieting to Ianto than anything else. “Well” Jack said, voice a little husky. “I don’t know if you remember what the Doctor said, that night” - the sentiment rang hollow, as they both knew perfectly well that he did remember, because how could he forget - “but _this_...” he indicated the Rift, the coordinates outlined in bright blue, “this is a _chance_ , Ianto.” He met his eye. Something about the way Jack took a deep breath made Ianto think this was a rehearsed speech. “Our life together has been more than I ever dreamed I’d be able to have. But it’s _hard_ ; immortality is hard. And sometimes, when we lose someone...” he broke off, eyes sliding off Ianto’s, and he knew Jack was picturing the same thing he was, “...then I think about how it doesn’t need to be like that for you. I’m stuck here for eternity; I’m a fact, a fixed point. But you… your timeline is looped around mine. If it could be disconnected, the Doctor said you could pick up where you left off.” Jack came forward and took his hands in his, a smile on his face as his thumbs stroked the backs of Ianto’s hands, running over his wedding ring. “You could start aging again.” He raised his eyebrows, looking terribly vulnerable, and more nervous than Ianto had ever seen him. “If you wanted.”

Ianto frowned. “Jack. What I want aside, last time we did this, when we closed the Rift it nearly wiped out the whole of Cardiff.”

“That’s the thing though” said Jack quickly. “I’ve been researching, Ianto. I figured out how to do it safely this time, do it right. We just need to cause a small, fully-contained paradox, disconnect your timeline from mine, and it should...” he gestured, “...unloop, and start back up again. You… wouldn’t have your Moresight anymore, I think. But your lungs would improve over the years, if you weren’t living on a loop anymore. You could finally heal.”

“Jack. I healed years ago” said Ianto impatiently.

“Well then” said Jack, licking his lips. Again, that suppressed look of fear, shining out of him like a cover thrown over a lamp. “You wouldn’t have to watch our children age and die. You wouldn’t have to keep outliving everyone.”

Something in Ianto broke with that, a flash of nervous anger he’d been holding back. “But you would!” he snapped.

Jack didn’t back down in the face of his outburst. “There’s nothing that can be done for me” he said, maddeningly gentle and placid. “I came to that realisation a long time ago. This time I’ve had with you… helped me come to terms with it, Ianto.”

Ianto opened his mouth and closed it again, feeling himself fill with anger and hurt. “Why are you saying this, Jack?”

“I’m not saying you have to!” said Jack hastily. He rubbed his thumbs over the backs of Ianto’s again. “I just wanted you to have the option. My gift to you.” He gave a soft little laugh. “Think of it as an anniversary present.”

“It’s not our anniversary” snapped Ianto, snatching his hands back and turning away; his fingers were trembling, he realised, though with what emotion he couldn’t say.

“Okay. Don’t be angry, Ianto. I’m giving you a choice here… I thought you’d be happy!”

“Happy… _really_ , Jack?” he turned on his heel, furious suddenly. He realised there were hot tears running down his cheek and he wiped them away, glaring back at Jack. “You’re telling me I can die if I want, leave you on your own, and you’re saying I should be _happy_?”

“Well it’s more than I ever got!” Jack snapped back at him. “It’s more than anyone in the world gets! A _choice_ , Ianto! _No one_ gets that!”

“Jack” he said, holding his gaze intensely, hands balled into fists at his sides. “I _chose_ this. I chose _us_ , a long time ago.”

“Did you? Didn’t seem like you had much choice to me!”

“Uh, I’d say I did actually… you know, when I married you?” he gave Jack an annoyed shake of his head. “Until death do us part, et cetera. I went into it knowing full well neither of us would be dying any time soon.”

“You know what I mean” shot back Jack. “I don’t mean _me_ , Ianto. I mean… all this. Immortality. You don’t know–”

“Actually, I think I _do_ know what it’s like by now” interrupted Ianto, growing a little more impatient. “It’s been a thousand years, Jack. You hadn’t even been immortal that long when we first met. So don’t try and use that condescending _you-don’t-know-what-you’ve-got-yourself-into_ routine on me.” Seeing Jack’s face he relented somewhat. “...Look, Jack” he said, taking Jack’s hand between his. “I know you’ve spent a long, long time alone, before me. I know you think eternity is cold and empty, because it _was_ for you, for so long. You shouldn’t have had to have that. But...” he sighed, wishing not for the first time, that a thousand years had made him better at expressing himself with words, “...do you really think I’d just leave you here? Leave all of this, our life?”

“It wouldn’t be instant. You’d have a normal life first. A happy life, Ianto.”

“We _have_ a happy life!” he said, voice rising in a way that he knew sounded more plaintive than angry. “...Don’t we?”

“ _Yes_ ” said Jack, emphatically. “Of _course_ we do.”

Ianto stared back at him, vision blurring with tears. He sighed, drawing himself up stiffly, voice cold. “Look… you’re my husband, and I love you more than anything. But don’t you bloody _dare_ patronise me, Jack. Okay?”

“I’m _not –_ Ianto! No, Ianto, come back...”

But Jack’s words faded behind him, as Ianto turned on his heel and left the room, afraid that he’d break apart if he stayed in there in front of Jack any longer.

He didn’t even know where he was going, really; he stormed out of the room in a cold, blind rage. He realised halfway down the corridor that he’d automatically made his way to their bedroom; he slammed the door behind him and threw himself down on their bed.

Ianto gritted his teeth, frustrated anger burning through him. He got up and kicked over the chair, wincing in pain as it bruised his foot. After a moment’s hesitation, he went over and picked the chair up and set it right again, before sitting down in it and burying his face in his hands. Then he got up and paced around the room again, trying to burn off some of his agitation with little success.

Finally he came to a stop, standing in the centre of the room and trying to breathe evenly. His chest felt a little tight, like it had sometimes before he’d started getting the tracheal implants and had needed to use his inhaler, but that was probably just psychosomatic, a symptom of thinking through all this again. He grimaced; he’d need to get the implant changed again soon. Damn accelerated healing power; his body tended to eject them. Still, it wasn’t to be helped, and at least his breathing wasn’t terrible right now. Hand going to his pocket, Ianto pulled out the watch and flicked it open; sure enough, the hand was in the last quarter, so it was unlikely to be his lungs acting up.

 _On_ _which_ _note_ … putting the watch away, he took a few deep, steadying breaths, hands on his hips. He concentrated for a moment, letting his awareness slip just to the side of this timeline. It was easy at this time of the loop, as effortless as stepping into another room.

And Ianto knew the nearby timelines these days, very well indeed. He was also very accustomed to how this worked. He and Tosh had worked it out together, in the first years after. Indeed, he always thought of Tosh when he did this, with the sort of fond pang that grew from grief, but gladness of time together and a life well-spent, a friendship well-lived.

They’d sat at the table in the Hub, working through the implications of it. Working out the rules.

The first rule, was that timelines that were probabilistically closer were easier for Ianto to access. He hadn’t known what Tosh meant at first when she’d posited that theory, but the way she’d explained it made sense, and it was always the way he’d pictured it afterwards.

Timelines, she’d told him, were like the branching streams of a river, sometimes diverging, sometimes converging back together again where multiple possibilities led to the same result. Some farther removed, some neighbouring. The longer ago two timelines split, the more likely it was that there would be more probabilistic space between them, went Tosh’s reasoning. And the greater the probabilistic space, the more energy it took to look across it. That meant it should be harder for Ianto to look into the timelines which had split from his own thousands of years ago, than those that diverged seconds ago.

Which, in practical terms, meant that most timelines he saw looked similar enough to his own such that they were almost indistinguishable. To see anything appreciably different, he had to put more effort into it; there was a knack to it, he’d soon found, once he’d started doing it on purpose. _Moresight_ , he’d started calling it, because he liked having names for things. And once it had a name it felt easier; he’d close his eyes – more to decrease any sensory distractions than because he actually needed to – and concentrate, envisioning an endless plain of alternalities and feeling for the boundaries. Then if he was lucky, he’d be able to slip into another timeline.

Like walking in a direction that doesn’t exist, as he’d once described it to Jack. Jack, of course, hadn’t had a clue what that actually meant, much less felt like, but he’d been supportive nonetheless.

Sometimes it was easier than other times; that was rule two. Because of the way he’d got his immortality and his perpetually looped timeline, Ianto became more unstuck from his own timeline just about every six months. This was the time when the Moresight was strongest. It was an unconventional way to spend forever. Ianto would be the first to admit that. But it was the one he’d got used to over the course of a millennium, and he’d grown rather attached to it. He’d got used to taking a quick look into other timelines occasionally, just checking to see how alternate versions of the present were doing. He’d grown attached to some of those realities too.

Not that he could affect events there, any more than they could affect his own reality. That was another rule, the hardest part of this to get used to. With a little effort Ianto could watch every version of reality play out, watch every way events could have gone unfold, note and record to his heart’s content and follow the consequences of them through the centuries. It had taught him a lot about the workings of his own world, and sometimes it helped him anticipate and prepare for things that would happen in his own timeline. But there was a caveat to that; as he’d once told Gwen, it really, really wasn’t any kind of foresight. You could see any number of alternate versions of now, and sometimes still be none the wiser about tomorrow. Ianto was desperately, painfully aware of his blind spot, which covered events so vanishingly unlikely that the chance of them showing up in the timeline he was looking at at a given moment was almost nil.

But those things did happen, sometimes; in fact, he was well aware that his own existence as it was, with Jack, was one such improbable event.

The thing was: in the first few decades of Ianto’s immortality there had been many other versions of himself, going about their lives in the nearby timelines. Not every timeline of course; many had already been killed off, by Torchwood or otherwise. Many died young, a few made it to a conventional old age.

These days, when Ianto looked around at other timelines, he never saw another version of himself. Not that he thought he was unique: he was sure there _was_ another immortal Ianto Jones, somewhere out there. After all, that was the nature of infinity. By the same token, he was sure he’d encounter him someday. But in cosmic terms, he knew, a thousand years was very little time in which to look for something very improbable. And so when he explored the universe of possibilities, Ianto was to all intents and purposes completely alone.

Except he wasn’t alone; not in his own timeline. He had Jack, and Jack had him. He thought about this as he stood in the middle of the dimmed bedroom, eyes half-closed as he scanned the nearby timelines.

In many of them the ship was not where it currently was, and he simply found himself floating in the blackness of space. He usually moved past those ones quickly; Moresight already gave him mild vertigo at the best of times. In those where the ship was where it was though – or on Earth, in more usual times – Ianto spent a lot of time watching Jack, as he went about life alone. Sitting on a smaller bed than the one in their room, head in his hands. Pacing the deck of a ship. Fighting, dying, lying in a pool of his own blood with no one to hold him and wait for him to come back.

(Ianto knew how much he appreciated that himself, when he died. Coming back always hurt a little less with the comforting, eternal warmth of Jack there to welcome him back.)

Ianto sighed, steadying himself with a hand on the bedframe as he searched vainly through yet another timeline, finding no answers there. _Improbable events_ , he thought bleakly. Never easy to understand by looking at their alternate versions. But maybe this was a side of Jack that he should have spotted, here and now in this timeline. Maybe he’d been looking away from it for too long.

Because Jack had his own reasons for wanting to give Ianto this choice, he knew. As his anger cooled, the truth of it settled over him; he’d always known, really. Jack behaved the way he had tonight – for the last few weeks, or maybe even the last few decades – for a reason. It was the same reason that after one of their family died, Ianto always searched the other timelines for a glimpse of them still breathing. It was the same reason he’d tried to save Lisa, all the way back then, the same reason he’d convinced himself into believing he still could. The same reason that the others, that first team, that new and precious little family all broken and healed back together, had torn time and space to save him. Bringing him back from the brink of death and beyond not once but twice, together.

It was love, Ianto realised with a weary sigh. Just love, that simple. Jack loved him so much, and had been so deeply hurt in the past. He still didn’t like it; it still tore deep in his heart. But he understood, or at least he thought he was starting to. Maybe in another thousand years, he’d understand a little better. Maybe Jack would understand where Ianto was a little better by then too; they could work on it.

Well, thought Ianto, going to the bedroom door. No time like the present.

They still had a long journey ahead of them, after all.

* * *

Jack was staring out the window on the viewing deck, eyes barely seeing the wide, beautiful sweep of the galaxy, so deeply was he lost in thought.

He’d made a mistake, he knew, putting it to Ianto like that. And yet he didn’t think he was in the wrong here; Ianto might not be feeling the full crushing weariness of immortality yet, but one day he would, Jack knew. And the day that happened, it was imperative that they had options. When he’d seen the news, the coordinates of the Rift popping up onto his monitor, his heart had gone to his throat, blood beating loud in his ears as he realised over the course of a few seconds what it could mean. A moment later, he’d chastised himself for the rush of dread he’d felt, spiraling and irrational; this was what he wanted, of course it was. Ianto should, above all else, have a choice in this, the agency over his own fate that Jack himself had never been allowed. It was only right, it was a _good_ thing. The very best gift he could give Ianto.

But he’d fucked it up, was the thing. It hadn’t sat right with Jack, and he hadn’t been good enough at keeping that to himself; all he’d done was upset Ianto too, and that was selfish of him.

The thing was he’d almost been prepared for Ianto not to understand, to take it wrong. But he hadn’t been prepared for the anger, for Ianto to take offense at the very suggestion; hadn’t they spoken about this before, right at the very beginning after the Doctor had explained Ianto’s new situation for the first time? But of course, to Ianto then it must have seemed like a theoretical proposition. Not so to Jack; he’d spent time in the intervening years, on and off, reading up on it, the possibility always there in the back of his mind.

And now he’d gone and fucked it up. And Ianto was angry with him. Jack gritted his teeth, leaning his arm and his forehead against the cool glass of the viewing window.

“Going to stand there all the way home, are you?”

Jack turned abruptly, to see Ianto leaning against the doorframe. He didn’t look angry anymore, Jack thought; just very tired. It wasn’t often even he saw the weight of the years on Ianto – he’d always been very good at dissembling – but now he did, more than usual.

“Well, our bedroom was otherwise occupied” said Jack awkwardly, testing the waters.

Ianto took a step into the room. “Not anymore.”

Jack walked forward cautiously, meeting him in the middle. “Okay...”

“I was… taking a look at a few other possibilities.”

“Did you find what you were looking for?”

“...Not really, no.”

There was silence between them for a moment, as they both met each other’s gazes, waiting for someone to speak. “Look, Ianto” said Jack at last. “I’m… I’m sorry.” He raised his hand automatically, wanting to touch Ianto, wanting some contact, before bringing it down again at his side, still unsure of where they stood. “What I said, before...”

“...Jack” sighed Ianto at last, clasping his hands together in front of him and staring down at them, rather than look Jack in the eye. “The thing is… you know I love you, more than anyone else. You _know_ that. But you don’t understand what it’s like to see what I see.”

“I _do_ –”

But Ianto was shaking his head; not angrily, Jack thought, just sad and matter-of-fact. “You can’t” said Ianto. “Not unless you’ve seen it yourself. I don’t mean that as an accusation, Jack, I mean it literally. I know this because I couldn’t have understood myself, before I was able to see every single version of reality, stretching out parallel to our own in every direction.”

“...I guess it must put things in perspective, yeah” Jack acknowledged, with a tilt of his head.

“It does.”

“Must make it seem… small.”

But Ianto was shaking his head. “It doesn’t, though!” Ianto took his hand between his own, holding it tightly and insistently, like he really wanted Jack to understand. “That’s just it; I’ve spent nearly a thousand years now seeing every could-have-been, every other world, every possibility that never made it here and now, played out from its beginning to its distant consequences. I’ve seen other ways my life could have gone, and the vast majority of them ended long, long ago. I’ve seen friends and loved ones die, and live, different lives to the ones they got. And I’ve seen you, Jack; you tip the scales of probability, tie it around yourself. The Doctor’s not being metaphorical when he calls you a fixed point. You show up everywhere, and you never die... but you do suffer. And I hate seeing that. I’ve seen the world be so cruel to you, Jack; more than you’d ever believe, so cruel that I almost don’t want to look anymore.”

“Then why do you?” said Jack, looking heartbroken. “Why put yourself through that?”

“To remind myself it can also be kind” he said. He smiled, clear and open. “This world, here, is nearly unique; the fact that we can exist at all is already incredibly improbable, but the fact that you and I are here, and together, and we get to be _happy_? The odds against it are astronomical. No, cosmological. I know you can’t ever let yourself believe this is forever, can’t let yourself take it for granted. That’s fine… neither can I.”

Jack’s mouth was half open. “Ianto...”

“I know why you’re the way you are” said Ianto. “I know enough about what you had to live through… before me. You were alone, and that changed you. You wouldn’t wish eternity on anyone else. But _this_ , Jack...” he gestured all around them, “this is _not_ that. Agreed?”

“I mean, yeah, but...”

“And I’ve never had to be that alone. I’m grateful for that, and I’d be the first to admit there are aspects of this I don’t understand yet. I haven’t got a clue about eternity… not the future sort at least. But most of the time I’m not scared of it, because I’ve got you. And you’ve got me too. For as long as you need me… yeah?”

“Oh, Ianto” said Jack, swallowing thickly. “I’ll always need you.”

Ianto folded his arms, raising an eyebrow in the way he got when he knew he’d won. “Then I don’t know why we’re still having this conversation.”

Jack smiled through his tears. “When the hell did you get so wise?”

“Dunno” said Ianto, blowing out his breath with a teary chuckle of his own. “Somewhere along the way, I guess.”

Jack laughed too, tentatively leaning in – asking tacit permission all the while, emboldened as Ianto met him halfway – and kissing him lightly, arms draping around Ianto’s shoulders as though gathering something precious to himself. But despite this, he had to check. He muttered the question into Ianto’s hair just beside his ear. “So… your answer’s no, then.”

Ianto stiffened a little in his arms, drawing back. “Does it still need saying?”

“...Yes” said Jack, unable to keep his voice from cracking. “Or, maybe not, but I would _like_ to hear you say it.”

“Then, no” said Ianto gently, taking Jack’s hands in his between them again. Their rings glinted in the light of the console, as Ianto reached to the side and closed down the display with the Rift coordinates. “No, I don’t want to make myself mortal again. I’m staying with you, Jack. Not because I have to, but because I want to.”

Jack nodded, breathing out, only now realising how afraid he’d been. “Can you do something for me, Ianto?”

“Yes, obviously.”

Jack took a deep breath. “This’ll happen again. Rifts crop up now and then, it’s just how space-time works. Not often, but they happen. And… and I’m going to keep monitoring for them.”

“Jack...”

“Please! Please just hear me out. I’m going to keep monitoring, and… and I know I’ll find another one one day. Could be a thousand years time, more even, but odds are it’ll happen. And when it does… I want to hear you say it.”

“What?”

“I’m going to ask you the question, Ianto. Please, will you answer it again each time?”

“You know the answer, though. Every time, I’ll choose you.”

“Will you say it anyway?” Jack asked, not caring that he sounded like he was pleading for reassurance as he ran his thumbs over the backs of Ianto’s hands. “For me?”

Ianto stared at him for a long, long time. Then he nodded. “Yes, I suppose I can do that.”

Jack smiled, as a weight he hadn’t even realised was there lifted from his chest. “Thank you” he rasped.

Ianto responded by clasping their fingers tight together and kissing him, hot and deep and life-affirming this time. Jack pulled him back against his body, gasping out a soft sound of relief into Ianto’s mouth.

And from there, it was very simple indeed.

They barely made it to their bedroom, reaching for each other with desperation, all eager hands and hungry mouths. Though nothing had actually happened, Jack could feel that the room was full of a tacit sense that something had nearly gone terribly wrong today. It almost felt like the times when they burned off their excess adrenaline after saving the world, again. But this time, Jack knew with a terrifying certainty, he had no one but himself to blame. Not that it would stop him in the future; what mattered was the choice itself. He was sure Ianto understood this, because by some miracle Ianto understood everything about him so well it almost frightened him sometimes. Ianto would grant him that, Jack knew, because he loved him and knew implicitly that Jack needed to see him make that choice, each time.

But not now. Now, all that Jack could think and feel was relief that Ianto was still with him, was not going anywhere. He gasped it out against Ianto’s skin, canting back his head against the headboard of the bed; Ianto was forceful with his touches today, taking control as he stripped them both of their remaining clothes.

Jack let him gladly, grateful for it as Ianto turned him so Jack was on his knees in front of him, Ianto’s hand around his stomach a grounding force. Pulling him back so that Ianto’s hard length rested hot against the cleft of his ass, turning Jack hard as steel so fast his head spun. His arousal was almost painful by the time Ianto pushed his legs apart with a sweet, driven fervour. Jack made a noise in the back of his throat that was half a moan, half a sob as behind him Ianto worked his clever, slicked-up fingers inside him, opening him up; Jack was quick to push himself back onto Ianto’s fingers, hungry for the sensation of it even if it burned a little. Tonight he wanted Ianto to give him all he could take, and then some.

Usually they’d prolong this part, enjoying every touch and kiss and the familiar heat between their bodies, but today Jack just wanted Ianto inside him; so much so that when Ianto first thrust into him, he nearly came there and then with the sensation of it alone. Jack glanced over his shoulder in time to see Ianto’s familiar smirk at that, fingers hard and bruising on Jack’s hips to get the leverage he needed to make Jack grind out a sharp moan at the depth of it.

After all their years together, Ianto almost always knew what he wanted, was the thing; sometimes even before Jack himself did. And today that was pure sensation as Ianto fucked him rough and fast, the bed frame squeaking and rattling with it as Jack ground himself back against him.

It didn’t take long, like that; Ianto was as desperate as he was, and soon enough Jack felt him shudder and lean over his back, taking Jack’s cock in hand as his thrusts became erratic, dropping his head down to bite at Jack’s shoulder as he came. Jack arched his back, taking Ianto’s free hand in his and gripping it hard, lacing their fingers together with a white-knuckled grip, and apparently that was all it took to make Ianto come with a loud, wrecked moan in his ear. The sound of it, and the hot pulse of Ianto inside him, hand stuttering on Jack’s cock, brought Jack along with him a moment later. Pressing his face sideways into the pillows and shoving Ianto’s hand against his mouth for a bruising kiss to his knuckles as he came, so long and hard his vision blurred before they collapsed together, utterly tangled up in a sticky, sweaty heap, Ianto’s face buried in his damp hair and his arms all around Jack.

For a minute they just lay there together, panting with exhaustion before Jack turned around in his husband’s arms, Ianto’s softened cock slipping from him with a cooling rush of come. Pressing his face to Ianto’s throat, heedless for a moment of the mess, just clinging onto him. Ianto breathed out, bringing up a limp and boneless hand to stroke through the back of Jack’s sweat-damp hair.

Jack must have dozed off like that, because he woke some time later to find the light turned down, the worst of the mess having been wiped off his skin and Ianto’s arms around him, the blankets pulled up around both of them. He shifted as he came awake, pulling Ianto’s hand to his lips again. Ianto laughed, pulling it back and kissing their joined fingers himself.

“To think there was a time when you told people you didn’t sleep” said Ianto. “I almost believed that, right at the beginning. I never knew what to believe, honestly.”

Jack pushed himself up in bed, leaning down to look at Ianto’s face in the dimness, tracing out his familiar features with a gentle brush of his fingers; the line of his brow, his high cheekbone and his upturned nose. His pretty mouth, still a little swollen and pink from Jack’s kisses earlier. On impulse, he leaned down and kissed him again, sudden and quick and deep. As he drew back, Ianto’s lips were left parted and chasing after his, damp and shiny in the dim light. Jack laughed. “Well... us immortals gotta keep an air of mystery somehow.”

Ianto chuckled, rolling his eyes fondly and shaking his head against the pillow. And _oh_ , Jack wanted him again already.

“Ianto. Open the shade” said Jack suddenly.

“What?”

“I want to see the stars as I fuck you” said Jack, a smile playing around his mouth. Ianto stared at him for a moment, eyes suddenly dark and jaw going slack with lust again in the dim light, lunging for the button on his side of the bed; the ceiling of their room went transparent, the spiralling void bright above them. Jack lay down on his back, and Ianto – knowing what he wanted, again – straddled him, looming over Jack in silhouette with the stars at his back. Behind Ianto’s shoulder he could see the very edge of a softly fading nebula; he remembered suddenly, the day a few hundred years ago when they’d sat in a grassy field on Earth and watched it burst in a blazing supernova, briefly the brightest thing in the sky.

He looked away from it and back at Ianto’s face, cast mostly in shadow and a few planes of dim light, as Ianto began to rock his hips into Jack’s.

Where before they’d grasped at each other, swift and messy and clumsy, now they took their time, going slow and languid; after all, time was the one thing they weren’t lacking in. When Ianto finally bore down on Jack’s cock, Jack gasped out his name, pelvis arching up into him; the warm, grounding weight of Ianto’s thighs pressing down around his hips, the heat of him around Jack’s cock and the beat of Ianto’s heart that he could feel inside his body, trapped between them. Or perhaps it was his own heartbeat, or both. Either way, all of it formed an interlocking rhythm of cyclic sensation that was almost hypnotic as he gazed up at the dark silhouette of Ianto, the stars drifting by overhead with the trajectory of their ship, on its way back home.

Jack had no idea how much time passed; it seemed an age that Ianto worked him up with the motion of his hips by increments. But eventually Jack couldn’t hold on any longer, fingers clenching in the muscle of Ianto’s thighs as he came deep inside the vital heat of him.

Jack could just see Ianto’s triumphant grin in the dimness, as Ianto jerked his hips and clenched down a few more times, drawing out the shuddering aftershocks for him until Jack was a whining bundle of overstimulated nerves.

Jack laughed, finding his face wet with tears again as he pushed a boneless hand to Ianto’s thigh. _Up._

Sure enough, Ianto guessed immediately what he intended, slipping off Jack’s cock and tipping forward. Splaying his legs wider so he was half leaning over Jack, bracing his hands against the headboard. At the same moment Jack shuffled down, until his face was level with Ianto’s thigh, his cock suspended above Jack’s face where Ianto held himself up with keening anticipation of Jack’s mouth. There was balance and precision and trust required for this, especially in the half-dark, but they’d had time to perfect it, after all.

“Jack” begged Ianto from somewhere above him, “ _please_.”

He pressed his mouth against the soft inner part of Ianto’s quivering thigh, letting the sudden tears that had sprung to his eyes soak into the line where Ianto’s leg met his hip. Ianto’s hard cock bumped insistently against his other cheek though, and he heard an impatient whine above him and opened his mouth, licking the shaft lightly.

When he finally took Ianto in his mouth, his hips driving forward lightly above Jack’s head, he could hear the soft whimpers Ianto was making above him, and smiled around his cock, before raising his head to take Ianto deep into his throat.

When Ianto finally came with a breathy string of gasps and curses from above him, Jack worked his throat around him and gladly swallowed down everything Ianto had to give him.

Afterwards they lay curled up together under the starlit sky, Jack’s arm around Ianto’s waist and his lips pressed to the back of Ianto’s neck; he needed to fall asleep with him securely in his arms after everything that had happened today.

He was slower to fall asleep this time, his mind full of thoughts again; Ianto was awake too, he could tell.

“I love you” said Jack against his skin, wanting to reassure Ianto. “If you’d said yes, I don’t know what I’d do without you” he admitted.

Ianto sighed, lifted their joined hands together; it was Ianto’s wedding ring hand, and the metal band glinted softly in the reflected starlight, like a little galaxy all its own. “I know, Jack. I know. I’m not going anywhere” muttered Ianto, voice low and a little rough with emotion. Jack got the feeling it was not only for his reassurance but for Ianto’s own too; like a litany, like he was saying the words aloud to make the universe listen.

“I know” said Jack. “I’m sorry.” And he wasn’t just apologising for today, but for all the days, all that he’d done wrong.

Ianto sighed, pulling Jack’s hand around him again, and without words he knew it for what it was; _I understand_ , and _I_ _suppose this had to happen someday_ , and _I_ _know this will happen again_ _._ _When it does, I’ll understand then, too_.

That was the thing about being immortal, Jack had learned; statistically speaking, everything happens someday, sooner or later. Even more so, he supposed, if you’d seen all the possibilities that Ianto had. Infinity in every direction, even the ones that didn’t exist.

And yet still Ianto understood; understood how Jack needed this, forgave him and was willing to give him the answer he needed to hear. What had he done to deserve this man, Jack thought unbidden.

“It’s okay, Jack” Ianto answered him, mumbling into the sleepy-warm darkness beneath the stars. “It’s okay.”

And he was right, Jack thought as he closed his eyes against Ianto’s skin. Somehow, against all probability, it would be okay.

As long as they had this.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry if this was a little angstier in tone than the rest of the endgame of this AU; Ro read Just This Once and came up with the idea of a story about the first time they find another Rift as they do in the epilogue, and naturally I couldn't resist writing that! But if it's any consolation, I do have another fic planned with these two set in the future that's much less emotionally heavy in tone, so look out for that at some point soon hopefully! 
> 
> Also, I didn't initially intend this to be part of the fest, but it did work well for the prompts, especially since the fest is about alternate timelines! Being as this both is an alternate timeline itself, and actually explicitly _about_ alternate timelines, in large part! But there is no Moresight prompt because that's a thing I made up myself, oh well.....
> 
> The title is a lyric from [Alive](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKvaJ0uvdhM) by Skipinnish, which I think is more the vibes of Just This Once as a whole, but also works well with this fic for thematic reasons :')
> 
> Let me know what you think, and/or come say hi on tumblr @ultraviolet-eucatastrophe!


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